


The Letter

by malchanceux



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Red Dragon - Thomas Harris
Genre: Amnesia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malchanceux/pseuds/malchanceux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wakes up in the hospital with only one thing he can be sure of: my name is Will Graham. The rest is blank space within the bone cage of his skull.</p><p>//////////</p><p>Prompt fill, with the original request linked in the end notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

           

        He wakes up in the hospital with only one thing he can be sure of:  _ my name is Will Graham. _

The rest is blank space within the bone cage of his skull. For a while Will lays in morphine dulled pain and grabs blindly at memories that slip through his fingers like smoke. He is quiet, still—it takes the nurses what seems like hours to realize he’s conscious, and when they do they ask him questions he cannot answer.

At first they tell Will he has retrograde amnesia, typical with the kind of trauma he has just suffered, and temporary--but Will is not fooled. He does not remember his birthday, where he lives, how he ended up in the hospital, or _why_ there is no one listed on his emergency contacts, but Will _does_ know the human mind. This is no mild case of retrograde anything. This is something much, much worse.

 

* * *

 

 

           

        When Will first sees his face it is from the reflection of a spoon. He’s eating what he thinks is supposed to be meatloaf, only stomaching the slop because the doctor had threatened an IV if he didn’t. Will hadn’t thought it weird, the lack of mirrors in his room, or the bathroom for that matter. He’d been a little preoccupied with his injuries; some days, he still needed assistance to walk to the restroom.

        Now, through the distorted view of a metal spoon, Will can see there is something very wrong with his face.

        Suddenly he is hyperaware of every muscle pulled taut over his skull. He can feel a strange numbness at the left side of his face, going from the base of his nose and looping down his cheek to his lip. It pulls at the skin there; it’s an unnatural sensation and he wonders how he ever could have missed this—how he could have been so oblivious for the days he’s been awake!

        Will hastily wipes the spoon off and flips it around. Still not ideal, but he can make out more of his reflection this way. Even if he wishes he couldn’t.

        An ugly white scar, jagged and raised; that’s all he sees. Pain flairs from where the old wound sits and Will screams. A knife, there’s a knife! God,  _ it hurts!  _ He can feel the ghost heat of blood gushing down his cheek, envisions an enraged man with a ruined smile holding him down, can smell piss in the air and hear a child’s muffled sobbing. Will screams for it to stop, for the man to stop, for the boy to just  _ shut up.  _ Stop  _ crying! _

        It takes five nurses to hold him down and another to administer a sedative. When he comes back to himself hours later, groggy and sore, his doctor tells him that he had just experienced a severe panic attack. He prescribes pills and sedates Will again, for his own good, of course, he “needed his rest”.

        On the precipice of unconsciousness, Will recognizes the fit for what it was. Post-Traumatic Stress, his mind supplies. What could he have gone through for such a thing, for such a scar? His heart leaps in his chest, a weak resistance to the drugs. Oh god, what could he have done?

 

* * *

 

 

           

        Only after a straight hour of arguing with the doctor do the nurses bring him the clothing and belongings that were on his person when he wrapped his car around a tree.  _ Yes,  _ Will wants to scream, he could “deal with the trauma”; he wasn’t a child that needed to hide away from the horrors of reality. Will didn’t need to be spoken to in soft whispers and told  _ ‘no’ _ in gentle condescending tones, as though he did not fathom his own psyche or what he could and could not handle.

        They bring in a dusty box with an air of irritation; the days under Georgetown hospital’s care has been like chafing skin for both Will and the staff. He’s pretty sure in the end the nurses only bring his belongings in to give the old, aging doctor a reprieve, not because Will made any kind of  _ point _ .

        Doesn’t matter. The sloppily folded envelope he finds in the front right pocket of his jeans  _ does. _

        There are water stains, and a splotch of dried blood  _ (his blood) _ soaked into one corner, but neither take away from the elegant script addressing the letter to one William Shannon Graham of Sugarloaf Key, Florida. A cheap stamp with a faded American flag is ripped, frayed, and slowly peeling away and taking paper with it; some of the ink has run, but most of it is legible. In fact, what catches Will’s eye is the return address, barely marred by rain or blood or age, as it reads, stamped on, not handwritten like everything else,  _ ‘Baltimore’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane’. _

        The envelope and paper is of poor quality for what he finds within. The handwriting and the  _ words _ feel as though a nobleman has written them, like they should be on thick stationary and sealed with wax. The pages are not perfumed but a faint scent coils in the back of Will’s throat, something like wood and spice and damp earth. Familiar as Will’s own name but alien as the scarred face he sees reflected in the mirror.

        A memory forgotten, but once treasured.

 

* * *

 

 

Dearest Will,

How long has it been since I have last written to you? It seems so long ago, almost like another lifetime, though I suppose it would be more accurate to ask how long it has been since you have last seen one of my letters, instead. I imagine that time would be, impossibly, much longer. I find myself almost grateful for both your reluctance to read the letters I send you, and Jack Crawford’s reluctance to give them to you. I have been so regretfully rude in the last few I’m afraid, my behavior brash; _tasteless_.

This letter, my dear Will, is one of apology, and perhaps a bit more. I do hope you can find it in yourself to read through it all.

Did you know that certain species of bird of prey share a peculiar mating ritual? They climb to impressive heights and tangle talons before falling into a dead drop. It is an exercise in trust; it is a test of their forming bond—how strong is it, truly? They find out rather quickly: if both birds survive, if they both hold onto their potential partner until the very end, they are compatible and mates for life. If they fail, well—either one has tried to hold on for too long, or has given up too soon. Precarious, wouldn’t you agree? Tedious. However, I have found myself contemplating these birds studiously for the last few weeks.

Do you think, Will, that in our fall we have failed—or do you think it has yet to end?

Despite all of my plans, all of my _designs,_ I find that I cannot comfortably answer this myself. We have been through much together, you and I; we have faced many trials and tribulations. Through each a lesson has been learned—with much shed blood, sweat, and tears—and with each we have gained new strengths and weaknesses. But is this it? Are we done? Have we held on too tightly, or let go prematurely? Have we cut through the air only to tumble to the ground? Or has everything leading up to this very moment been a part of our descent?

I digress—perhaps this is too much for one letter of which you may never read. My parting words then, Will, will be my apology for lying to you so blatantly. The scarring that you bear—of which the newspapers have been quick to broadcast—has yet to steal your beauty. At least, not from my eyes. The tissue has settled into a smooth, stark wound by now, impossible to ignore as it is to hide or fix. Please allow my final words to be a balm to the scorched skin I marred since Dalorhyde: you are no Picasso, William Graham. You appear to me only as you always have since our fateful meeting: exquisite.

       Yours,

       H.L.

 

* * *

 

 

           

        Will’s doctor decides he is incapable of making decisions on his own, and tells Will that he is going to be transferred to the psych ward of the hospital, and stay there, until social services can figure out what to do with him. A part of him is sorely tempted to do as told. To stay at the hospital and take their medications and their tests and stay put. It would be easier. Somehow, the procedures they describe seem familiar. That in itself is unsettling—terrifying, if he thinks about it too long.

        Another, more dominant part tells him he needs to find this  _ H. L.. _

        The first chance he gets Will grabs ahold of the nearest phone and dials a number by what seems muscle memory and sheer force of  _ will _ .

        “Hello?” a feminine voice plays like music over the line. A face comes to mind, smudged and faded like a reflection in a foggy mirror. Long dark hair, the outline of an attractive woman. All Will knows is that she can get him out of the hospital.

        “Alana?” his voice cracks when he speaks a name he does not know, “This is Will. I need your help.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter to a story I thought would end up being a one-shot at this point. No promises of more.
> 
> Also, I went back and edited the first chapter. Cleared out some errors, cleaned up some terrible sentence structure...

        Alana is not what Will expected.

        She is sharper than what had been coaxed to his imagination. When Will had first spoke her name, the syllables had slipped from his tongue like honey. Her visage had danced gently like tall grass in a wind-swept field; had been smooth like thick smoke from an expensive cigarette. A balm to a burn wound.

        The Doctor Alana Bloom that storms through Georgetown Medical Hospital like a hurricane is nothing like the soft impression Will had remembered. She speaks only in demands, the distinct _‘click, click, click’_ of her impossibly slim pumps stir a sense of urgency into the atmosphere, making nurses and doctors alike anxious. Will’s stomach tied in knots at the sight of her, a heavy _wrongness_ settling over the picture Alana makes.

        ‘Sharp’, Will thinks, should not be a word associated with Alana Bloom. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Something terrible has happened—something has transformed her. Morbidly, and perhaps selfishly, Will wonders if what changed her is the same thing that _scarred_ him _._

        “I’m having you transferred,” Alana says, just hours after discovering the full extent of Will’s condition. She holds up a paper bag, something that looks like it came from an upscale department store, and tells him to change. He finds a soft flannel shirt inside, a pair of jeans, boxers, and socks. Everything fits impeccably. Will has an icy feeling that at one point he and Alana were, if not an item, then _something_. A bond that transcended friendship by millimeters, perhaps. Something that wanted to blossom but found its roots in stale soil.

        Will speaks only when they are being driven in the back of a very expensive car, with miles between himself and the smothering atmosphere of Georgetown Medical.

        “Where are we going?”

        “I told you I was having you transferred.”

        Will grits his teeth, wonders if she had always been this… _this._ He owes her though, for going out of her way to help him, so though he thinks it might kill him, he does not lose his temper.

        “Where am I being transferred to?”

        For a while Alana does not answer. She looks at Will with an intensity only a psychiatrist could manage; the gears behind her eyes oiled and clanking in time perfectly. Everything out of her mouth handpicked and orchestrated.

        “I’ve pulled a few strings and am having you put directly under my care at Baltimore’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”

        The name strikes an urgency straight into his bones, though Will cannot fully interpret the emotions that rush him.

        “ _’Criminally Insane’?_ I don’t understand. Do you think I’m _crazy?_ ”

        “No! Look, I know you of all people might find these accommodations uncomfortable, but things are different now. You won’t be treated like the other patients—you’ll be under my authority only,” her eyes thaw a bit, perhaps a sliver of who she once was empathizing with the gnawing  hole of dread that has begun to open up in Will’s stomach.

        “You’re not being committed. Not officially. You just need stability and routine; to give yourself time to recover physically and mentally. I’ve had a private room prepared for you. You’ve just experienced a very traumatic accident, Will. I might not have agreed with how the doctors were handling your situation back there, but they were not entirely wrong. You can’t just go _home_.”

        Will’s makes to protest, but Alana cuts him off with a tone sharp as glass.

        “As you are, would you even know what to do or where to _go_ once released from the hospital?”

        Will’s mouth snaps shut with an audible _click._ It hurts, Alana’s words; a heavy weight sits on his chest. She has left him feeling _wounded_ , and to place that bitter tongue with the gentle creature he recalled not hours ago is the worst kind of betrayal. It felt like meeting her, this _utilitarian_ and _fierce_ Alana Bloom, was tainting the smoke smooth memory he had held tentatively yet reverently. The scent of honey and oak and the subtle hint of a women's floral perfume consumed by the crisp smell of a tart wine, of expensive ink; the strange remnants of another women's fragrances mixing in a way that claimed the doctor as another's _inamorata_.

        Hurt and angry, Will sits back in his seat and turns towards the car's window, watching as the world rushed by. He felt a constant pressure, a vague impression as though he had driven this route a thousand times before, but no true recollection came.

        Tears burned Will’s eyes but he willed them back. Shame felt like a familiar friend, and it wrapped its suffocating tendrils about him as Will realized just how right Alana was. He hadn't the slightest clue where _home_ was. If left to his own devices, he would not have the slightest idea of where to begin.

        Will let his hand drift to his inner jacket pocket, felt the resistance of a crumpled envelope against the soft silk of the jacket lining. Now that his panic had calmed, Will recalled the return address of the letter he had found from one mysterious _H.L._

        He was a patient at Baltimore’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Will thought, for a split second, to ask Alana of the origins of the letter. As the administrator, if the initials were not immediately familiar, surely she could help Will narrow down the possibilities. But harsh words had carved a cavernous trench between them, and Will had a sense that Alana Bloom would not be forth coming, and perhaps even hinder his hunt for the author of the apology that had stirred such emotion deep within.

        Will could only hope that when he found H.L. that they would not be so changed, so _grotesque_ as the Alana Bloom who came to his rescue.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this, like, two years ago? It's still not done but oh well??
> 
> OP: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1724.html?thread=1164988#cmt1164988


End file.
